Top 25 Anime Characters of All Time

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Counting down a quarter-century of animation greats.

By Chris Mackenzie

Japanese animation has been around a long time now. We've only been aware of it in America for so long, especially when it comes to shows besides G-Force and Speed Racer, but it's been nearly 50 years since the first black-and-white Japanese TV animation hit the airwaves. Since then, Japan has taken animation in more directions than any other popular culture, creating a broader range of classic characters than even we in America can claim.

In recognition, we thought we'd have a shot at coming up with a list of 25 all-time classic animation stars. It's hard to harvest just a few of our very favorite characters out of shows airing over five decades, but we gave it a go anyhow, and here are the results.

Our criteria for selection involved a little bit of everything – each character's lasting fame, the impact they had on the medium and their particular genre at the time, the depth and quality of their realization on screen, and of course, a little bit of personal taste. Everyone out there has their own damned opinion, of course, so have a look at ours, and then feel free to share yours afterwards.

Shinji, to quote a famous fanboy one-liner, is a giant wuss. He cries, he whines, he cowers, he chants a constant mantra about how he "mustn't run away" before promptly running away several times throughout Neon Genesis Evangelion.

We love Shinji, perhaps, not for what he is, but for what he could be. For all the many times where the guy completely drops the ball – including at the climax of the entire Evangelion saga, with the fate of all humanity hanging in the balance – there's a couple of outings where Shinji really is every last bit he could be. When he beats the Third Angel to death with its own rib bones, it's hard not to love our boy Shinji.

Or maybe we just love Shinji because we wish we could be in his shoes, because we know we could do the job so much better ourselves. And shack up in a pad with no parents and two gorgeous girls besides.

24. Totoro First Appearance: My Neighbor Totoro, 1988

Hayao Miyazaki has invented enough lovable characters to fill a whole list of his own, from the mighty flying pig who took the lead in Porco Rosso to the quirky little coal-demon from Howl's Moving Castle. One of them stands out above all the rest, which becomes especially obvious if you ever happen to visit a Japanese Toys R Us. In his home country, and even abroad to a degree, Totoro is eternal.

The interesting thing about Totoro, as heroes of children's stories go, is that he isn't completely…safe, might be the word. He's cheerful and friendly and fuzzy, true, but he's huge and loud and wild, too. He's a spirit of nature, with all that entails, and that might be what's helped give him serious staying power over the decades since.

It's hard to come up with a "hero" who is more unabashedly, unashamedly evil. Seriously. Lelouch is a liar, a thief, a manipulator, and a mass murderer with a body count…possibly up in the seven figures, depending how you do the counting, by the time the Code Geass saga is finally over. At some point or another, he finds a way to betray or kill almost everyone he has ever known.

In spite of it all, though, he had his reasons. He meant well, in his supremely screwed-up way. And in the end, he was ready to pay for it, and pay for it he did. Say this one thing for Lelouch, he never did a damned thing halfway, and he made Code Geass a heck of a ride all the way to the end.

Some characters work for relatively complicated reasons. Other characters work because they hit people really hard. Luffy, most would agree, belongs to the latter category.

That might be selling the rubber man a little bit short, though. Plenty of tough-guy anime heroes can dish it out all day, but Luffy can take it, too, which is a somewhat rarer quality. Hit him as hard as you can and he'll just bounce right on back – in fact, it's hard to think of a meaner counter-puncher, not since Joe Yabuki from nigh on 50 years ago. He's done Shonen Jump proud for many years now, and there's no reason to expect he won't keep going for plenty of years more.

Before so many others picked up the same gimmick, he was the original unmitigated bastard. When you wonder about the appeal of a Light Yagami or Lelouch Lamperouge, consider that the prince of the Saiyans was a fan favorite years before they came on the scene. Vegeta's so arrogant he reckons himself superior to most of the population of the galaxy, and he'd probably look down at the rest of the universe if he happened to meet anyone from that far away.

He came around a bit, though, which is a big part of his appeal. He never quite became Mr. Nice Guy, but Bulma certainly did her best to civilize the big lug. There's something to be said for a hero with just a touch of a bad guy in him, and by the end that describes Vegeta to a tee.